The current push towards increased innovation within the public sector calls for new approaches to IT Governance. However, recent findings highlight the aim to avoid trade-offs between innovation and ...efficiency through organisational ambidexterity. This paper reports a case study of ambidextrous IT Governance in two large government agencies. According to the findings, ambidextrous IT Governance is enacted through two separate but interrelated mechanisms that emerge simultaneously. In terms of exploitation, the "efficiency creep" mechanism creates a bias for efficiency - rather than innovation-oriented investments. In terms of exploration, the "shadow innovation" mechanism involves unsanctioned innovation activities. These two mechanisms interplay, in the enactment of ambidextrous IT Governance. The contribution of this study lies in theorising about how ambidextrous IT Governance is enacted in public sector organisations, and how efficiency creep and shadow innovation influence each other. This contribution aids future research and practice on public sector innovation and IT Governance.
Decisions continue to be important to researchers, organizations and societies. However, decision research requires re-orientation to attain the future of data-driven decision making, accommodating ...such emerging topics and information technologies as big data, analytics, machine learning, and automated decisions. Accordingly, there is a dire need for re-forming decision theories to encompass the new phenomena. This paper proposes a modern data-driven decision theory, DECAS, which extends upon classical decision theory by proposing three main claims: (1) (big) data and analytics (machine) should be considered as separate elements; (2) collaboration between the (human) decision maker and the analytics (machine) can result in a collaborative rationality, extending beyond the classically defined bounded rationality; and (3) meaningful integration of the classical decision making elements with data and analytics can lead to more informed, and possibly better, decisions. This paper elaborates the DECAS theory and clarifies the idea in relation to examples of data-driven decisions.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore and theorize on balancing practices (BP) for digital ambidexterity in the public sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is designed as an ...interpretative case study of a large Swedish authority, involving data collection in the form of interviews and internal documents. The method of analysis involves both theorizing on the findings from a previous framework for digital innovation and deriving design implications for ambidextrous governance.
Findings
The findings show that all identified BP except one (shadow innovation) is directed toward an increased emphasis on efficiency (exploitation) rather than innovation (exploration). With the increased demand for innovation capabilities in the public sector, this is identified as a problem.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations identified are related to the choice in the method of an interpretative case study, with issues of transferability and empirical generalizability as the main concerns. The implications for research are related to a need for additional studies into the enactment of digital ambidexterity, where the findings offer insight and inspiration for continued research.
Practical implications
The study shows that managers and executives involved in the design and imposition of governance within the public sector need to take the design recommendations for digital ambidexterity into consideration.
Social implications
The study offers two main implications for practice. First, policymakers need to take the conceptual distinction of efficiency and innovation into account when designing policies for the digital government. Second, existing funding practices need to be re-designed to better facilitate innovation.
Originality/value
This is the first study directed toward enhancing the insight into BP for digital ambidexterity in the public sector. The study has so far resulted in both a localized shift in policy and new directions for research. With the public sector facing needs for increased innovation capabilities, the study offers a first step toward understanding how this is currently counteracted through governance design.
The paper focuses on the challenge of generating theoretical support for software development, especially when human software developers are involved in the software development process. We outline a ...model, “Coat Hanger”, for theorizing about development practices. The model focuses on the intended rationale for the actual realization and resulting impacts of using particular practices in varying contexts. To illustrate the use of the model, we have studied recent practice-oriented articles in the journal Science of Computer Programming. A survey of articles in the journal between 2010 and 2013 showed that out of 371 articles, only four studied software development in professional organizations with actual software practitioners as informants. The Coat Hanger model was then used to identify the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of these four practice descriptions. The analysis is used as the basis to declare the potential of our model as a conceptual aid for more structured theorizing about software development practices. The contribution of the model is the introduction of a concretization of how theorizing can be done through reflection-in-action, instead of regarding research on software practices plainly from the prevailing viewpoint of technical rationality.
Collaboration among governmental organizations has been regarded as essential for realizing benefits of e-government investments. Inter-organizational collaboration on e-government can appear in ...several forms and can aim at varying types of benefits. However, few if any studies have delved deeper into analysis of how chosen forms of collaboration might relate to targeted e-government benefits. This article studies five cases of how contemporary acquisitions and implementations of digital archiving systems have been launched through five modes of collaboration (autonomous, standardization, framework agreement, consortium, and central service organization) among organizations in the Swedish public sector. Our analysis reveals that whereas the target system, digital archive in our case, stays similar, expected benefits vary. The article contributes by elaborating the concept of mode of collaboration that identifies typical benefits justifying a choice of a particular collaboration form on e-government development and describing the five modes in more detail based on a multi-case study. The article also outlines fourteen related propositions of the correlation between the collaboration modes and expected benefits to be verified by further research.
•Modes of inter-organizational collaboration for e-government initiatives.•Expected benefits with particular modes of collaboration and how they vary.•Multiple cases including focus group interviews, secondary data and survey.•A set of propositions for the correlation between the collaboration modes and expected benefits.•Helps public-sector organizations to be more aware of different benefits while choosing to be involved in a particular form of collaboration.
Knowledge graphs (KGs) structure knowledge to enable the development of intelligent systems across several application domains. In industrial maintenance, comprehensive knowledge of the factory, ...machinery, and components is indispensable. This study defines the objectives for evolvable KGs, building upon our prior research, where we initially identified the problem in industrial maintenance. Our contributions include two main aspects: firstly, the categorization of learning within the KG construction process and the identification of design objectives for the KG process focusing on supporting industrial maintenance. The categorization highlights the specific requirements for KG design, emphasizing the importance of planning for maintenance and reuse.
This study examines a strategic development and implementation process of enterprise content management (ECM) in a large oil company. In view of the framework of four motors of development and change ...in organizations, this study represents a revelatory case of a hybrid development approach to ECM that involves the teleological, life-cycle, and dialectical motors of development. This is in contrast to the evolutionary development motor, which has prevailed in the hitherto reported content management research. The case study also complements process-based research on enterprise system implementations in general. We suggest that research and practice on large-scale ECM implementations should acknowledge all the four motors of change.
Contemporary methods for assessing information security risks have adopted mainly technical views on the information and technology assets. Organizational dynamics of information management and ...knowledge sharing have gained less attention. This article outlines how an information security risk assessment method can be elaborated using knowledge-centric analysis of information assets. For this purpose, we suggest the use of a genre-based analysis method for identifying organizational communication patterns, through which organizational knowledge is shared. Initial experiences of the method try-outs by three experienced information security professionals are discussed. The article concludes with a look at the implications of a genre-based analysis of knowledge assets for future research and practice.
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